5 witnesses examined in Jaya's disproportionate assets trial

The five who deposed before the court are Veerabahu, an Executive Engineer with the Public Works Department in Tamil Nadu, Subbaiah, also an engineer with PWD, Krishnamurthy, Rajendran, a videographer and Parthasarathy, a photographer.

All of them were re-examined. The witnesses maintained that their statements during the chief (first) examination were correct, but however resiled from those made during cross-examination.

Defence Counsel Navaneetha Krishnan said the witnesses were being "tutored" and were doing so under police pressure. When trial began today, Krishnan moved an application before Special Court judge B M Mallikarjunaiah, stating that the '161 statement'(made by a witness before the Investigating Officer) of Veerabahu was not there on the records and hence he could not be recalled for re-examination.

The court rejected the application and re-examined Veerabahu. Krishnan subsequently moved two applications-- the first seeking appointment of an interpreter to rectify mistakes in recorded statements of witnesses as per the Supreme Court order and the second seeking corrections in the translated version of evidence before examining the said witnesses.

Special Public Prosecutor B V Acharya opposed both, saying a translator had already been appointed by the government to translate statements of witnesses from Tamil to English. There was no need for an interpreter and as and when the defence felt there were "really some mistakes in the translation", an interpreter could be appointed, he said. Both applications were rejected.

The trial will continue tomorrow when five other witnesses who have been recalled will be re-examined. The wealth case against Jayalalithaa which was heard by a Chennai court had been transfered to Bangalore by the Supreme Court.